My Favorite Day

We tugged at our wet bathing suits, on our way to pizza. It had been a long day – a good day: “March Teen;” the day we celebrated Audrey’s fourth birthday. In the morning she sat around the wooden dining table, surrounded by friends, and ate a decadent breakfast of cold cereal, bagels with cream cheese, boiled eggs, fresh berries, chocolate milk, and orange juice. Afterward, the children opened presents before streaming outside to blow bubbles.

In the haze of afternoon Grandpa and Aunt Sommer took Audrey to the Gaslight Theater while Dutch and I and Evangeline went out hunting for an old piano – we found one, a 1929 Wurlitzer which, as we drove to dinner, was hid beneath a sheet in the entryway, waiting for Audrey to unveil it.

The sky was black and starless – the moon hung like a giant paper lantern in the sky, white and round and smooth. “The biggest moon in twenty years!” a little voice proclaimed in astonishment. “It’s the biggest moon in twenty years!” I turned around to look - Audrey was nuzzling Snowflake, the little toy dog Walker had given her as a birthday gift. “It’s for you, Snowflake,” she said ebulliently. “It’s just for you – because today is your birthday.”

She leaned her head back - her wet hair slicked back like a little golden helmet atop her elfin shoulders - gazed out the window, and sighed. The moonlight streamed in from outside, lighting up her face and forehead and I saw what looked like little white stars dancing in the brown oceans of her eyes. “O,” she said, to no one in particular, “this is my favorite day.”

My heart swelled; suddenly it was my favorite day, too.